Whee!

There was some debate among kids at the playground about whether this is a spaceship or an airplane. Hazel didn't care one way or the other. She just wanted to fly.

The persuasive power of a good vocabulary

Juniper: I'm Lightning Girl and one of my powers is I can turn into a beetle that crawls. You can have that power too. Want me to show you?

Sally: Not right now, Juniper. We're eating dinner. You can be a beetle that crawls after dinner.

Juniper: But I can turn into a beetle and crawl.

Aaron: Please sit in your chair, Lightning Girl. You can show us your beetle power after dinner.

Juniper: Did you know that Lightning Girl can turn into a beetle that crawls? I can show you.

Sally: I would love to see how Lightning Girl can turn into a beetle after dinner.

Juniper: But I'm very excited and very eager to turn into a beetle.

[Grownups unsuccessfully attempt to suppress smiles and make eye contact with each other, both giving a small nod of agreement.]

Sally: Juniper, I think maybe I am very eager to see you turn into a beetle.





The first part of that conversation is a reasonable approximation of what was actually said, but the line about being very eager is a direct quote. Pitching a fit and whining wouldn't have done it, but we cave when confronted with good vocabulary words (correctly used, of course).

Hazel's latest trick

She trains us as much as we train her. We love to get Hazel to perform tricks on command, but she's even more delighted at the discovery that her actions can prompt a response from us. These days, one of her favorite ways to initiate play is by shaking her head at someone, knowing that we will respond in kind.

First tooth!

Hazel's first tooth broke through the skin last Friday. Nice to have an explanation for several days of uncharacteristically cranky behavior. It's still not visible, but you can definitely feel it. Photo to follow, once we get one.

Crawling along

It's amazing how quickly she went from this...



...to this.

Juniper's 1st blog post

Aaron recently gave Juniper an old camera. She's been enjoying it. Juniper took all of these pictures (and many more). She picked out her three favorites for this blog post. The captions below are all hers. Be on the lookout for more Juniper posts to come!

Hazel's not sleeping, and I took that picture.

Johnny's flaming on. Only that.

Honk, honk

Thanks Scott!